When down to the Collingwood Children’s Farm on Monday to check their 9 hives. The sun was out and it was going to be a warm day with a possible shower or two in the afternoon. All the hives were active with bees flying in and out, bar one. In the front of this hive
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I went and picked up my new Carla e-Trailer yesterday from Dutch Cargo Bikes. Yes, it’s electric!! When I got home I loaded it up and was off to work. It was great to be able to carry all my gear and spares. The trailer was a breeze to pull. I’m very pleased with its
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I get lots of calls this time of year about my honey and its potential for reduce people’s hayfever symptoms. Up to now I’ve said that I’ve not seen any evidence beyond hearsay that honey is effective against hayfever. But thanks to an article in the Beekeepers Club journal I now can provide people with
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I help out in managing the Collingwood Children’s Farm (CCF) apiary, a partnership between the CCF and the Victorian Apiarists’ Association Melbourne Section. With the Covert-19 restrictions operating in Melbourne public visits and the running of training courses have stopped and we’ve limited the number of beekeepers going to the apiary to 2 at a
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I had just finished checking my last hive and turned my attention to picking peas from my community garden lot when the phone rang and was called out to a swarm from a hive from I hive that had inspected a while back. When I got there, the bees were 3 metres up a tree
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I got called out by a beekeeper as their hive had sent out a small swarm and they were concerned that they had lost their queen. I made time to go out and have a look as the hive may send out a larger swarm or after-swarms if action is not taken. The beekeeper had
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The sun came out occasionally yesterday and I was able to requeen two hives and split two others. The hive splitting were quick jobs as I had all ready Demareed the hives so that brood and nurse bees were in the top box. The strategy adopted was to have two hives on the same hive
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My first order of new queens for the season have arrived and the weather is not good which will slow things down. I should be able to setup nucleus over the next few days during bursts of good weather. I’ll update you as the progress and outcome. Update: 9 October 2020 All the queens are
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It’s spring and a week ago I did my rounds checking if hives were preparing to swarm. 7 hives were looking as if they were on the verge and I internal split them using the Demaree method. The weather looked good yesterday, just before a cool change. So I went around to check all the
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I’ve had a number of calls regarding bees swarming. It’s spring and bees are are building their numbers and, if the conditions are right, they will want to reproduce and swarm. There a number of actions a beekeeper can take to reduce the potential for swarming and these are based around: Having a good young
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